Staging Deleted files

Question

Say I have a file in my git repository called foo.

Suppose it has been deleted with rm (not git rm). Then git status will show:

Changes not staged for commit:

    deleted: foo

How do I stage this individual file deletion?

If I try:

git add foo

It says:

'foo' did not match any files.

Update (9 years later, lol):

This looks like it has been fixed in git 2.x:

$ git --version
git version 2.25.1

$ mkdir repo

$ cd repo

$ git init .
Initialized empty Git repository in repo/.git/

$ touch foo bar baz

$ git add foo bar baz

$ git commit -m "initial commit"
[master (root-commit) 79c736b] initial commit
3 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 bar
create mode 100644 baz
create mode 100644 foo

$ rm foo

$ git status
On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
    deleted: foo

$ git add foo

$ git status
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
    deleted:    foo

Solution 1

Since Git 2.0.0, git add will also stage file deletions.

Git 2.0.0 Docs - git-add

< pathspec >…

Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to add all matching files. Also a leading directory name (e.g. dir to add dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to update the index to match the current state of the directory as a whole (e.g. specifying dir will record not just a file dir/file1 modified in the working tree, a file dir/file2 added to the working tree, but also a file dir/file3 removed from the working tree. Note that older versions of Git used to ignore removed files; use --no-all option if you want to add modified or new files but ignore removed ones.

Solution 2

Use git rm foo to stage the file for deletion. (This will also delete the file from the file system, if it hadn't been previously deleted. It can, of course, be restored from git, since it was previously checked in.)

To stage the file for deletion without deleting it from the file system, use git rm --cached foo

Solution 3

Even though it's correct to use git rm [FILE], alternatively, you could do git add -u.

According to the git-add documentation:

-u --update

Update the index just where it already has an entry matching [FILE]. This removes as well as modifies index entries to match the working tree, but adds no new files.

If no [FILE] is given when -u option is used, all tracked files in the entire working tree are updated (old versions of Git used to limit the update to the current directory and its subdirectories).

Upon which the index will be refreshed and files will be properly staged.

Solution 4

To stage all manually deleted files you can use:

git rm $(git ls-files --deleted)

To add an alias to this command as git rm-deleted, run:

git config --global alias.rm-deleted '!git rm $(git ls-files --deleted)'

Solution 5

to Add all ready deleted files

git status -s | grep -E '^ D' | cut -d ' ' -f3 | xargs git add --all

thank check to make sure

git status

you should be good to go

View more solutions

Comments

[Hauleth]

Also you can add --cache flag to remove file only from repository, and leaving untouch in filesystem.

[Andrew Tomazos]

Yes git add -A . will add all changes, I specifically wanted to stage one deleted file.

[longda]

What would be the process to undo this operation, that is, un-stage the file for deletion? Is that possible?

[longda]

Just answered my own question... git reset HEAD <file> followed by a git checkout <file> seems to do the trick!

[Foreever]

This will add all modified files; Not just deleted files.

[Foreever]

If you want to delete files in a directory, you could use git rm -r directory

[Sailesh]

That is correct. More specifically, it will stage all the changes in files that are already tracked, whether deleted or just modified. This helps when you delete multiple files and don't want to stage them individually.

[aug]

Is there a way to only stage deleted files and not modified? Just curious.

[Sailesh]

I am not aware of such option. In such cases, I individually stage deleted files with git rm file1 file2 command. If there are a lot of deleted files and less of modified, do git add -u followed by git reset file1 file2 command. On the whole, I think you can't avoid individual directories or files in these cases.

[pal4life]

@Wooble This still gives me Changes to be committed: # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage) # # deleted: sites/default/settings.php How do I add the file to be committed ?

[Wooble]

@pal4life: you don't add the file to be committed, since you want its deletion to be committed, not its addition. git rm does just that. When you next git commit the deletion will be committed.

[Dimitry K]

Actually OP asked how to stage already_deleted file and this can be done by git status | grep 'deleted:' | cut -d':' -f2 | xargs -t -I {} git add -u "{}" . Other answers seem to be showing how to stage file removal correctly (but not how to stage already deleted files). ps. the xargs based command works for me on Ubuntu 12.04, however when I manually do git add -u deleted_file.txt it doens't work. My git is 1.7.9.5

[Wooble]

@DimitryK: git rm will happily stage a file for deletion even if it's already been deleted from the filesystem. And as OP's comment on another answer points out, they wanted to stage one specific file that was already deleted.

[parliament]

I did git add -u FolderWithDeletedFiles/ and it did what I want, thanks

[DanGordon]

Confirming that this works. I think the lesson here though is to not do rm <file>, but rather git rm <file>

[Félix Adriyel Gagnon-Grenier]

the $() notation aparently doesn't exist in windows bash console, leading to unknown option `deleted)

[Wil Shipley]

I don’t think this works if you have spaces in your path, either. At least, it doesn’t on my system (with zsh).

[eis]

In windows do for /F %I in ('git ls-files --deleted') do git add -u %I

[davis]

FYI: cutting on spaces causes issues if any paths have spaces in them

[J-Dizzle]

this does not work for filenames with spaces, 'git add -u' does if needed.

[J-Dizzle]

this does not work for filenames with spaces, 'git add -u' does if needed.

[J-Dizzle]

this does not work for filenames with spaces, 'git add -u' does if needed.

[Kalob Taulien]

Works perfectly for me on git version 2.15.2 (Apple Git-101.1).

[KulaGGin]

git rm doesn't stage already removed files. It throws this error: fatal: pathspec '~.SLDASM' did not match any files. Here are screens with proof: i.imgur.com/cKNKGGe.png i.imgur.com/1p9JdWF.png . First screenshot clearly shows that 2 files are deleted and not staged, second screenshot shows that when I type git rm "~$Box.SLDASM", it throws this error.

[Wooble]

@KulaGGin: read the error message. It's not trying to delete a file with "$Box" in the name because your shell got rid of that for you. Add more quotes if you're going to have files with horrible names.

[João Antunes]

The accepted answer doesn't solve the problem - and the other are more cumbersome since Git 2.0.0 - this is the best way! You have my upvote

[cambunctious]

Minor, but I would just replace git rm with git add since I the files are already deleted and I am only updating the index.

[IMSoP]

There's an important caveat to this: something like git add foo/*/deleted.file won't work, because the * only expands to files that still exist. You can use other patterns that don't rely on files existing, though, such as git add foo/{bar,baz,quux}/deleted.file

[pavol.kutaj]

In Windows Powershell Core I use git add (git ls-files --deleted) or more bravely git add (git ls-files --deleted) && git commit -m "deletions"

[Matthias Fripp]

@IMSoP If files have been deleted from the file system at foo/*/deleted.file, you can also stage them for deletion by putting single quotes around the path, including the wildcard. That prevents the operating system from trying to expand the wildcard, and instead git expands it and stages the deleted files: git add 'foo/*/deleted.file'.

[Tadej Magajna]

does not work if file names have spaces